the 23rd of April, 1616, two days before the attainment of his seventeenth birthday, he was admitted into Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge. "Curious enough," says Carlyle, "while Oliver Cromwell was entering himself there, William Shakspere was taking farewell of this world. Oliver's father had most likely come with him; it is but twelve miles from Huntingdon; you can go and come in a day. Oliver's father saw Oliver write in the album at Cambridge: at Stratford, Shakspere's Ann Hathaway was weeping over his bed. The first world-great thing that remains of English History, the literature of Shakspere was ending: the second world-great thing that remains of English History, the armed appeal of Puritanism to the Invisible God of Heaven, against very many visible devils, on earth and elsewhere, was, so to speak, beginning. "They have their exits and their entrances, and one people in its time plays many parts." Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier on the 22nd of August, 1620, four months after his arrival at man's estate. His father had died three years before, and he retired to Huntingdon to live with his mother and wife. About this time Carlyle thinks Oliver became a Christian man,- -one who "believed in God, not on Sundays only, but on all days, in all places, and in all cases." In 1628 Oliver is returned to Parliament. In 1631 he removed to St. Ives, a few miles from his native place; there he continued till 1636. Carlyle in his own peculiar manner says, "a studious imagination may sufficiently construct the figure of his equable life in those years, (1631-1636) diligent grass-farming, mowing, milking, cattle-marketing: add 'hypochondria,' fits of the blackness of darkness, with glances of the brightness of very heaven; prayer, religious reading and meditation, household epochs, joys and cares :-we have a solid, inoffensive farmer of St. Ives, hoping to walk with integrity and humble devout diligence through this world; and, by his Maker's infinite mercy, to escape destruction, and find eternal salvation in wider Divine Worlds. This latter, this is the grand clause of his life, which dwarfs all other clauses. Much wider destinies than he anticipated were appointed him on earth; but that, in comparison to the alternative of Heaven or Hell to all eternity, was a small matter."

Somewhere about the early part of 1636, Cromwell removed to Ely, and continued there until the time of the Long Parliament. In 1640, King Charles summoned a Parliament for the purpose of obtaining supplies to support an army wherewith to whip the rebellious Scotch. Among the members returned was Oliver Cromwell, for Cambridge. Oliver sat however for three weeks only, as Charles failed in procuring the 'siller,' and summarily dismissed the stubborn representatives of the people,

determining to obtain money by 'other methods.' These 'other methods' were commission of array, benevolence, and forced loan, and by them he got a poor set of warriors to meet the Scotch. This army proved but of small service, nay, rather worse than no service at all, for the Scots crossed the Tyne, sent back the King's men to York, where the King was, and caused His Majesty and Strafford to be at their 'wits' ends.' After much puzzling, it was at last determined to summon a new Parliament, which met on the 3rd of November, 1640'-this was the famous Long Parliament, and Oliver sat again as member for Cambridge. Here is a portrait of him, drawn by Sir Philip Warwick at this very time. He says "I came into the House one morning, and perceived a gentleman speaking, whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled; for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill countrytailor; his linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar. His hat was without a hatband. His stature was of a good size: his sword stuck close to his side: his countenance swoln and reddish, his voice sharp and untuneable, and his eloquence full of fervour. For the subject matter would not bear much of reason, it being on behalf of a servant of Mr. Prynne's who had dispersed libels ;" and he concludes, -"I sincerely profess, it lessened much my reverence unto that Great Council, for this gentleman was very much hearkened unto," a thing that the young courtier, just returned as member for Radnor, and very proud of his brave apparel and high position, could not at all understand. By this we see that Cromwell had already obtained the 'ear of the House,' and spoke things that honorable members listened to with very great attention. And so he goes on for a year or two;-telling home-truths with energetic earnestness, devoid of all tricks of speech; saying his say right out like a true man, come what

may.

On the 4th of January, 1642, the King takes a step he never can retrace. But before relating this, let us look at the condition of things at that time.

"Charles, perceiving what a humour men were getting into, had decided on trying to adopt the puritan leaders, Pym, Hampden, Holles, and others-as what we should now call his "Ministers." These puritan men, under the Earl of Bedford as chief, might have hoped to become what we should now call a "Majesty's Ministry," and to execute peaceably, with their king presiding over them, what reforms had grown inevitable. A most desirable result if a possible one; for, of all men, these had the least notion of revolting or rebelling against their king. This negociation had been entered into, and entertained as a possibility by both parties: so much is indubitable,

so much and nothing more, except that it ended without result. It would in our days be the easiest negociation; but it was then an impossible one. For it meant that the king should content himself with the name of king, and see measures the reverse of what he wished, and meant, take effect by his sanction. Which in sad truth, had become a necessity for Charles I. in the England of 1641. His tendency and effort had long been the reverse of England's; he cannot govern England, whatever he may govern! And yet to have admitted this necessity,-alas, was it not to have settled the whole quarrel, without the eight-and-forty years of fighting, and confused bickering and oscillation, which proved to be needful first? The negociation dropped; leaving for visible result only this appointment of St. John's. His majesty on that side saw no course possible for him."

"Accordingly he tried it in the opposite direction, which also, on failure by this other, was very natural for him. He entered into secret tamperings with the Officers of the English Army; which, lying now in Yorkshire, ill-paid, defeated, and in neighbourhood of a Scotch Army victoriously furnished with £850 a-day, was very apt for discontent. There arose a 'first Army-Plot' for delivering Strafford from the Tower; then a second Army-Plot for some equally wild achievement, tending to deliver Majesty from thraldom, and send this factious Parliament about its business. In which desperate schemes, though his Majesty strove not to commit himself beyond what was necessary, it became and still remains indubitable that he did participate; as indeed, the former course of listening to his Parliament having been abandoned, this other of coercing or awing it by armed force was the only remaining one.

"These Army-Plots, detected one after another, and investigated and commented upon, with boundless interest, in Parliament and out of it, kept the summer and autumn of 1641 in continual alarm and agitation; taught all Opposition persons, and a factious Parliament in general, what ground they were standing on;-and in the factious Parliament, especially, could not but awakeu the liveliest desire of having the Military Force put in such hands as would be safe for them. "The Lord-Lieutenants of Counties,' this factious Parliament conceived an unappeasable desire of knowing who these were to be; -this is what they mean by 'Power of the Militia;' on which point, as his Majesty would not yield a jot, his Parliament and he,—the point becoming daily more important, new offences daily accumulating, and the split ever widening-ultimately rent themselves asunder, and drew swords to decide it."

Charles was compelled to sign sentence of death on Strafford, the ablest adviser the King had. It was unwillingly done, but there was no help for it; the people demanded it, and there was no withstanding.

On November 1st "News came to London, to the re-assembled Parliament, that an Irish rebellion, already grown to be an Irish massacre, had broken out. An Irish Catholic imitation of the late

Scotch Presbyterian achievements in the way of 'religious liberty;'one of the best models, and one of the worst imitations ever seen in this world. Erasmus's Ape, observing Erasmus shave himself, never doubted but it too could shave. One knows what a hand the creature made of itself, before the edgetool could be wrenched from it again! As this poor Irish rebellion unfortunately began in lies and bluster, and proceeded in lies and bluster, hoping to make itself good that way, the ringleaders had started by pretending or even forging some warrant from the King; which brought much undeserved suspicion on his Majesty, and greatly complicated his affairs here for a long while.

"The Irish rebellion blazing up more and more into an Irish massacre, to the terror and horror of all Anti-papist men; and in England, or even in Scotland, except by the liberal use of varnish, nothing yet being satisfactorily mended, nay all things hanging now, as it seemed in double and treble jeopardy,-the Commons had decided on a Grand Petition and Remonstrance,' to set forth what their griefs and necessities really were, and would require to have done for them. The debate upon it, very celebrated in those times, came on this day, Monday, 22nd November. The longest debate ever yet known in Parliament; and the stormiest,-nay, had it not been for Mr. Hampden's soft management, 'we had like to have sheathed our swords in each others bowels,' says Warwick; which I find otherwise to be true. The Remonstrance passed by a small majority. It can be read still in Rushworth,-drawn up in precise business order;-the whole 206 Articles of it,-every line of which once thrilled electrically into all men's hearts, as torpid as it has now grown. 'The chimes of Margaret's were striking two in the morning when we came out.'-It was on this occasion that Oliver 'coming down stairs,' is reported to have said he would have sold all and gone to New England, had the Remonstrance not passed;-a vague report, gathered over dining-tables long after, to which the reader need not pay more heed than it merits. His Majesty returned from Scotland on the Thursday following, and had from the City a thriceglorious Civic entertainment.

"December 10th. The Episcopal business, attempted last Spring in vain, has revived in December, kindled into life by the Remonstrance; and is raging more fiercely than ever; crowds of Citizens petitioning, Corporation 'going in sixty coaches' to petition; the Apprentices, or City Shopmen, and miscellaneous persons petitioning: -Bishops 'much insulted' in Palace-yard, as they go in or out. Whereupon hasty Welch Williams, Archbishop of York, once Bishop of Lincoln, he with eleven too hasty Bishops, Smectymnus Hall being one of them, give in a protest, on this 10th of December, that they cannot get to their place in Parliament, that all shall be null and void till they do get there. A rash step; for which on the 30th of the same month, they are, by the Commons, voted guilty of treason, and 'in a cold evening,' with small ceremony, are bundled the whole dozen of them, into the Tower. For there is again rioting, again are cries 'loud and hideous,'-Colonel Lunsford, a truculent

one-eyed man, having 'drawn his sword' upon the Apprentices in Westminster Hall, and truculently slashed some of them, who of course responded in a loud and hideous manner, by tongue, by fist, and single-stick; nay, on the morrow, 28th December, they came marching many thousands strong, with sword and pistol out of the City, "Slash us now! while we wait on the Honorable House for an answer to our petition!"-and insulted his Majesty's Guard at Whitehall. What a Christmas of that old London, of that old year! On the 6th of February following, Episcopacy will be voted down, with blaze of 'bonfires' and 'ringing' of all the bells,-very audible to poor old Dr. Laud over in the Tower yonder."

At this juncture, Charles takes the false step as before-mentioned. But let our author in his own graphic way describe the manner thereof.

"1642.-January 4th. His Majesty seeing these extremities arrive and such a conflagration begin to blaze, thought now the time had come for snatching the main livecoals away, and so quenching the same. Such coals of strife he counts to the number of five, in the Commons' House, and One in the Lords; Pym, Hampden, Haselrig, with Holles and Strode (who held down the Speaker fourteen years ago), these are the five Commons; Lord Kimbolton, better known to us as Mandevil, Oliver's friend, of the 'Soke of Somersham,' and Queen's-Court Committee, he is the Lord. His Majesty flatters himself he has gathered evidence concerning these individual firebrands, that they 'invited the Scots to invade us' in 1640: he sends on Monday, 3rd January, to demand that they be given up to him as traitors. Deliberate, slow, and as it were evasive reply. Whereupon, on the morrow, he rides down to St. Stephen's himself, with an armed very miscellaneous force, of 500 or of 300 truculent braggadocio persons at his back; enters the House of Commons, the truculent persons looking in after him from the lobby,—with intent to seize the said five members, five principal hot coals; and trample them out, for one thing. It was the fatallest step this poor King ever took. The five members, timefully warned, were gone into the City, the whole Parliament removed itself into the City, 'to be safe from armed violence.' From London City and from all England, rose one loud voice of lamentation, condemnation: Clean against law! Paint an inch thick, there is, was, or can be, no shadow of law in this. Will you grant us the Militia now; we seem to need it now!-His Majesty's subsequent stages may be dated with more brevity.

66

January 10th. The King with his Court quits Whitehall; the five members and Parliament purposing to return to-morrow, with the whole City in arms round them. He left Whitehall; never saw it again till he came to lay down his head there.

"March 9th. The King has sent away his Queen from Dover 'to be in a place of safety,'-and also to pawn the Crown-jewels in Holland, and get him arms. He returns northward again, avoiding London. Many messages between the Houses of Parliament and